Chris Hemsworth Racing Through Rush, Maybe Before Thor 2

Chris Hemsworth appears ready to move from playing a huntsman alongside Kristen Stewart’s Snow White to playing British Formula One racer James Hunt in a Ron Howard-directed biopic titled Rush.

Deadline says Oscar-nominated screenwriter Peter Morgan (The Queen, Frost/Nixon) will pen the script, which focuses on Hunt’s longstanding rivalry with fellow racer Niki Lauda during the 1970s. Hunt, who passed away in 1993, ran 93 races between 1973 and 1979, winning his lone championship in 1976. After retiring, he worked as a commentator for the BBC. Not that a picture named Rush will spend too much time in the broadcast booth.

Hemsworth’s career also is racing along. In addition to the Snow White film he’s appearing in alongside Stewart and Charlize Theron for director Rupert Sanders, the Australian hunk’s on the hook for Joss Whedon’s star-studded The Avengers (currently filming) and a Thor sequel that doesn’t yet have a director.

Howard, meanwhile, could stand to rev up his career a little. The Dilemma was a critical and commercial flop, earning a mere $69 million at the worldwide box. Frost/Nixon, despite its multiple Oscar noms (including Best Picture), could only muster $18.6 million domestically. And while his Dan Brown adaptations play well, Howard’s Dark Tower adaptation is in limbo. A racing movie would be out of Howard’s wheelhouse (no pun intended), which could be good. Yet the flat action scenes in both Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code weren’t exactly edge-of-your-seat cinema. Still, Howard has done extremely well with history (Apollo 13) and biopics (A Beautiful Mind) in the past, and the fresh collaboration with Morgan could eb the fuel that he needs.